The Big Lie
by David Atkins
The press establishment is already making a big deal of a a quote from California Democratic Party Chairman John Burton this morning:
“They lie and they don’t care if people think they lie… Joseph Goebbels – it’s the big lie, you keep repeating it,” Burton said Monday before the Blake Hotel breakfast. He said Ryan told “a bold-faced lie and he doesn’t care that it was a lie. That was Goebbels, the big lie.”
Pass the freaking smelling salts already. Burton wasn't calling Republicans Nazis or mass murderers. He was saying that they're using the same propaganda tactic Goebbels made famous. It's a fairly common reference:
All this was inspired by the principle--which is quite true within itself--that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.
The press may want to be reminded of this:
Did Paul Ryan bend the truth?
The verdict, rendered by a slew of media fact checkers, was immediate and unequivocal: In his first major speech before the American people, the Republican vice presidential nominee repeatedly left out key facts, ignored context and was blind to his own hypocrisy.
This week, Romney’s campaign faced questions about its repeated accusation that Obama ended welfare work requirements — even after fact checkers decreed that assertion false. Romney pollster Neil Newhouse turned the challenge back on the fact checkers, saying they bring their own “thoughts and beliefs” to the process.
“We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact checkers,” Newhouse said.
Not that fact-check organizations are perfect, of course. But the Romney campaign's claims about welfare are exactly the sort of thing Goebbels meant by a Big Lie: a lie that corrupts the deep emotional strata of huge segments of the population susceptible to racist appeals. A lie that distorts the perception of reality itself, a claim so boldly fallacious that it leaves no room for nuance, forcing the observer to baldly trust one side's claim or the other in a tribal way. A lie that washes away all the smaller lies and exaggerations of a campaign by its monumental boldness.
One would hope that the press establishment would be more offended by the Big Lie itself than by a party official's commonplace reference to what's actually going on.
Update: Burton responds with an apology:
“To correct press reports of my recent comments about Republican lies, I did not call Republicans Nazis nor would I ever. In fact, I didn't even use the word.
If Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan, or the Republicans are insulted by my describing their campaign tactic as the big lie - I most humbly apologize to them or anyone who might have been offended by that comment.”
He probably shouldn't have mentioned Goebbels by name, but there's nothing wrong with saying that they're using the Big Lie tactic. They are. If we're not allowed to call it what it is anymore, then I suspect a bunch of unnecessary circumlocutions will be in store for people looking to communicate such a simple idea.
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